Boeuf Bourguignon

April 8, 2013

I finally did it. I made Boeuf Bourguignon. But not any Boeuf Bourguignon….it was Julia Child’s world famous recipe.

Going into the whole thing I was anxious, to say the least. If you’ve heard of Julia Child then you know about her most famous dish and I wanted it to be just as good as everyone proclaimed it to be. We even went out and invested in a 20kg cast iron pot that barely fit into our oven.

I was Julia Child and my mom was my assistant, Louisette Bertholle and together we created one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Even my brother, who admittedly loves meat said this was among the best things he’s had {insert happy face here}. Who knew that something that looks like a gooey mess simmering in a pot for 5 hours would actually become something delicious?

Words really can’t describe how good this stew is. It may have been the bottle of wine I added to the stew {I minor adaptation I did to the recipe} or the tender meat that practically melted on my tongue. Let’s just say the overall composition can not be outdone.

I knew that the stew had to be done by 6pm on Saturday so I started cooking at noon that day. I even did “research” by watching Julia’s original demonstration which I found on Youtube {it’s quite funny, you should watch it}. It made the whole cooking process even more fun. I kept talking like Julia and said things like: "I think these wooden spatulas are awfully helpful".

All it takes is some prep time requiring 30 minutes of full concentration whilst you’re peeling onion and chopping carrots and then you’re free of hassle and dishwashing for the rest of the afternoon. You might have to peak into the oven once or twice to check if the stew is simmering but really that’s it. It’s one of those recipes where the outcome is in no relation to the work you put in.

For the original recipe from the book click here. It will link to a PDF document provided by Knopf {the publisher of the book} and you can try it out yourself. I doubled the recipe and if I may give you one piece of advice: you should too! Leftovers taste even better!

That’s what I thought too, but it really isn’t complicated at all. If you decide to try it, make sure to read the recipe a couple of times so you don’t miss any of the steps. But really, it practically cooks itself!!